Man City pay heavy price to carry ‘sappers’

The summer after his departure from Manchester United, Roy Keane gave a riveting two-hour talk to the Cork hurlers who were then bidding for a third All-Ireland in a row.

Something that particularly resonated with his countymen was the idea that playing the big teams was like going to war.

As Brian Corcoran would recall in his autobiography: “The real test of a player for him was Arsenal at Highbury. When he stood alongside Vieira in that tunnel, he wanted a certain calibre of competitor lined up behind him. That tunnel in Highbury was his trench and he only wanted certain players in it.”